Crossing the border with Blue Jays beat reporter Jordan Bastian.

Astros @ Jays pregame

A bunch of little things were discussed by GM J.P. Ricciardi here today at camp. Among them were the news of Toronto trying to sign Shawn Hill, hoping to put the finishing touches on that today, and finally stating what we’ve been assuming about Casey Janssen.

“I think if we can just ease him, he might be another guy by the end of april he’s ready to come back up here. It’s not advantageous for us to let him try to just get up to four or five innings right away. We’ll just ease him back in.”

So, Janssen is set to open the season at extended spring training or at Triple-A, depending on how many innings he can build back up to over the next couple weeks. That leaves Scott Richmond, Matt Clement and Brad Mills in the running for the two rotation jobs. But, Ricciardi tossed Ricky Romero’s name back into the mix today as well.

As for Hill, he’s been righting a right forearm injury all spring, and wouldn’t be signed to come in and compete for a big league job. The Jays are trying to stockpile arms and maybe have more experienced options to help the organization avoid throwing the young arms into the fire before absolutely necessary. Ricciardi wasn’t sure when Hill might be ready to pitch.

“I don’t know outside of just trying to sign him right now. If we sign him, we’ll get him in here. If we get him, he’ll have a physical and then we’ll have a better idea of where he’s at. So obviously we wouldn’t be signing him to come in here and make the major league staff. We’d have to get him up to speed.”

Ricciardi also discussed the backup catching situation, which is down to Michael Barrett, Raul Chavez and Curtis Thigpen. Brian Jeroloman will open at Double-A and J.P. Arencibia at Triple-A. J.P. also noted that the Jays tried to bring catcher Ivan Rodriguez into camp, but couldn’t afford it. More on the catching and rotation stuff later on bluejays.com.

Blue Jays manager Cito Gaston said today that Travis Snider (left knee) is scheduled to get back into a game on Monday in Sarasota.

I don’t understand how the Jays “can’t afford” $1.5M for Pudge. That’s less than they are paying Barajas and Pudge is better than Barajas. By saying that they “can’ afford” Pudge, JP is pretty much saying that he has over spent elsewhere. $1.5M for Pudge is a steal and if you can get him for that he need to do whatever you can to trim payroll.

I keep hearing about the Jays looking towards 2010 for their young pitchers (Mills, Romero, Cecil)… But what is the plan? As I see it 2010 already has 4 rotation spots filled: Halladay, McGowan, Marcum, Litsch. So that leaves 1 left. I know that Richmond and Jansen don’t seem to be in the long term plan. What happens if Purcey has a mediocre year, say 12-10 4.10 ERA 160 K? Do they stick with him for 2010? I’d say that is good enough to stick with for a young kid who will likely only get better in 2010. If they stick with Purcey, what happens with Mills / Cecil / Romero? Or would someone else be the odd man out? If so who? Why don’t the Jays just throw Mills and Cecil into the 4 and 5 spots and see who comes out on top between Mills / Cecil / Purcey and whoever has the best year, gets the #5 spot for 2010. If all 3 do well, you look at trading Litsch / McGowan / Marcum. What is the deal with this needing to spend time in the minors to develop? Kershaw is younger and is already in the bigs. Lincecum, Price and Gallardo are the same age and are in the bigs. Even Hamels is only a year older and is already a World Champion with 3 years under his belt. I see the Jays trying out all 3 (Mills / Cecil / Romero) at different points during the year. But how will that play in their minds going up and down?

Because you can never have too much pitching thats why, also 12-10 4.10 era and 160 k’s is I think a fairly good year or at least far from mediocre, i think the Jays brass would be pleased as punch with that. Who knows how Mcgowan and Marcum will be when they come back, is BJ Ryan the same as before his surgery? No. Romero isnt ready, Mills and Cecil aren’t far off, I think the Jays have been as good as possible in this search for a 4-5 starter, notice how guys have sort of weeded themselves out of contention for those spots? That’ll never cease to happen, we have 8-9 starters slated as possible for 2010, but mark my words, things will change before the start of 2010 season.

Yes, this time last year, we thought we’d possibly be looking for one starter, if Burnett left, and there was hope he’d stay and the starting rotation would be in tact going into 2009.
Then Marcum and McGowan went down, Burnett left and all of a sudden we were looking for 3 starters when we thought we might have to look for one. Injuries always happen to pitchers, and 8-9 starters is probably the right number in order to keep 5 healthy ones out there.
On the other hand, if we do not make the changes we need to make this year, we can forget about contending in 2010. All we’ve done so far is languish around and I for one do not believe this team is capable of contending simply because Marcum and McGowan come back.
We still need power at 1st and 3rd base, a lead off hitter and a real 4th hole guy to go along with the excellent pitching. Rolen and Overbay do not provide what’s needed and if they keep Millar instead of Inglett-our lead off hitter is Scutaro.
There has been no movement on hiring the new president and JP is waiting to be fired when that happens. So until top management is in place, we simply sit and mark time.

A former Manhattan madam who supplied Eliot Spitzer with hookers also counted Yankee slugger Alex Rodriguez as a customer – and found him so charming she dated him herself for free, former employees of the call-girl agency tell the Daily News.
A-Rod wooed ex-madam Kristin Davis with flowers, jewelry, persistence and heated e-mails, according to the sources. Davis met Rodriguez in June of 2006 in a gym in Philadelphia, shortly after she opened a branch of her call-girl service in the City of Brotherly Love, sources said.
New York Daily News

I agree with Gsjays. Its tough to sit and hear the same thing over and over, “wait til 2010” and “this season is a bridge to 2010”. Well when 2010 comes, we need a legit 1st baseman, unless Overbay can have a season where he nears 100 rbi’s again. and no two ways around it we definetly need a new 3rd baseman, and a lead-off hitter. With these gaping holes so evident, aren’t we only fooling ourselves thinking we will contend in the AL East? I think so, wish it wasn’t so but it is.

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